Bound (Bound Hearts #1) (3 page)

Even thinking about it now, I could feel myself gag and want to pull over to vomit. I had told Gram and Gramps when I showed up
that I had a bad home life in Granville. I didn’t go into particulars. I felt too ashamed. They suggested I take therapy and at first, I was too scared to talk to someone about what happened. I wasn’t comfortable with that. I didn’t take the advice right away. It took me almost six month of straight up nightmares before admitting to maybe seeing someone. It was worth a try if it helped me get over the terrors. The first few sessions with Doctor Gillian, I really didn’t say anything. Too nervous, I guess. Then, after a few silent ones, she just asked little simple questions. Easy questions. Nothing probing. It took a year before I opened up. Once I did? I unloaded everything. Family, Granville, the move to Georgia…Courtland.

I started taking an anti-depressant
. After nine years, I was finally ready to be off of them. I hadn’t have an episode in over a year. Thank God.

When I came back to
Hankerton three years ago, I had many sessions dealing with the rage and guilt and shame.

Pulling up into my parent’s dr
iveway, everything seemed quiet and peaceful. Eerily quiet and peaceful. I told Uncle Chet I wasn’t going to be here until tomorrow. Since I drove here though, I felt this sense of responsibility to my mother, even if I really shouldn’t. I did want to see her even though she never really wanted me very much. Geoff sometimes took his rage out on her. I cared. Mostly.

Uncle Chet raised h
orses, so their house was at the edge of town, on huge grass farmlands. He would throw Aunt Maggie one hell of a BBQ and it could, or would, last all day and night. He was getting on in years but he loved having the town people come over and have a good time. He didn’t care what kind of walk a person was on. If you wanted a good time, his place was the place to be when there’s a BBQ.

Parked, with the SUV off and keys out of the ignition,
I still hadn’t opened my door. I felt my knuckles grip the steering wheel tightly. Saying a quick prayer to give me strength, I got out and walked up onto their front porch. Swinging back the squeaky screen door-honestly, can’t he get that fixed?-and knocked on the front door.

After a few minutes, I knew someone
was checking the peephole. I could just feel an eye on me, the door swing inward and I was presented with the face of my mother.

She didn’t have a smile on her face. Looking at her, it seemed like she was dead inside. There was just nothing there.

“What you doing here girl?”

Here goes.

“Hello, mom. How are you?”

She pulled up her collar, in which I saw the beginnings of a bruise. Shit. What did I walk into?

Courtland

Damn. It was another long ass day at the garage and I was getting tired of going home alone. Same shit, different day for the past two years. Not that I minded working at the garage. I loved it, it was where I felt at home, and most at ease with myself. I loved tinkering on cars. After completing two tours in the Marines, I was done. I wanted out. Not that I wanted to go in the first place but it was that or jail. Jail was not an option. The Marines gave me a lot of opportunity. I got to see the world. I did long for home though. Until that letter.

After all the hearings and court shit I had to deal with, I was shipped off on the first available flight to boot camp in Lejeune. The one and only time I wrote Adelaide, I got a letter stating to never speak, call or try
to get in touch with her. That I was nothing, but a two-bit loser who would never amount to anything. That laid me low. I never would have thought she could stoop to that. Maybe getting arrested changed her mind. Hell, it was her damn fault for wanting to go into that field. I don’t regret it, but she could have at least been more polite.

Anytime JR tried bringing her up, I shot him down. I didn’t want to hear a damn thing. She was probably like any other
vagina. Not worth my time. I ended up being exactly what everyone thought, at least to the ladies. I banged a different chick anytime I had an itch and they never came to my home. That was one rule I made up front. Home court advantage was not the way to go when you want chicks scratching an itch, then leave on the fly. Sometimes they felt like cuddling. I wasn’t really a cuddler. I was good to every woman I was with, but they knew the score with me and vice versa. Women don’t marry men like me. If I was still in the Marines? Eh. Maybe. Badge Bunnies are what we call them and they only wanted one thing. Take a guess. They all knew they’d never get a ring from me so, their house was fair game.

I was good with my hands and I had scrimped and saved over the last decade
. I was finally finished building my dream home. It was near the riverbank by Chet’s dad’s place. I loved being near the water. I had been living on a boathouse in their riverbank for the last year and half while I was building. As soon as the house was at least livable, I moved in it. It’s the only thing that’s ever been mine and all mine alone. Joe was retiring at the end of the year and the only child Joe and Mildred had, died in a car accident. That was before I knew them and I didn’t know of any other attempts of having a kid, so he was giving me the garage. At first, I thought it was a charity type thing, but Joe gave me a swift cuff on the head and told me I was the son he hoped his would have become. I said thank you and went back to work.

I didn’t date. I was thirty-two and I had no plans on settling down. It sure as hell didn’t look like Adelaide was ever coming back. I might not ever wanna hear about her
, but I didn’t blame her for getting out of this town and doing something with her life. Which I hope she did.

My phone rang and seeing JR’s number on the screen
, I swiped my phone open. “Yeah, bro? What’s up?”

“Meet me at The Town Bar. I need a drink.”

I chuckled, knowing what his problem was. “Is Sylvie causing a hassle in your castle?”

“Fuck you man. Just get to the damn bar.”

Click.

“Shit. Well
, bye to you too.”

I turned my truck around and drove to the only bar in town. It was aptly named The Town Bar. There wasn’t any other place to go in this town if you wanted to have any fun.
If you wanted more than that, you had to drive. The Town Bar, had a little bit of everything. Pool tables in one corner, a dance floor on the opposite side and then tables scattered all over the place. On a Saturday night, it was always packed. It might be a small town of three-thousand, but it seemed like everyone came on Saturday night before they went to church the next morning.

Walking in, the place was busy. I met JR at one of the bar tops where they actually had chairs
, and ordered my Bud Light, while he was nursing something heavier.

“What’s up? You never drink hard liquor
Chet.” I usually called him JR. He knew to answer me when I called him by his first name though. I knew something was bothering the hell out of him and sometimes he’d dodge the question until someone forced it out of him. Calling him his full name, was one of them.

“Went home to find Sylvie fucking a dick that wasn’t mine for damn sure, in our bed. So, you got time to help me pack my shit later?”

Whoa. He and Sylvie had been going hot and heavy for the past three years. He was almost to the point he was going to propose. Thank God he didn’t have to deal with that shit now.

“Sorry bro-

“Nope. No sorry needed.” He raised his glass and clinked it with mine. “So tired of this shit. I really thought she was the one. Lucky I found out now, before I put a ring on her finger and had a baby with her or some shit like that.”

“Yeah, or some shit like that.”

That was another reason I didn’t want nothing serious. Pussy was just that. Get it, get it done and move on. Even in the Marines, most chicks didn’t want anything serious. They were just there most of the time to tell their girlfriends they banged a servicemen. I wouldn’t have believed that until I witnessed it. Twice. Nothing off my back though. They saw me and their eyes lit up like the fourth of July.

We were sitting at the bar
drinking quietly, when I saw JR’s dad walk towards us. He tipped his Stetson and said, “Boys.”

“Dad.”

“Chet.”

“Son, Sylvie called the house looking for you all frantic like. Is there something going on?”

“Yeah, dad, she totally took me to the warehouse. Guy in our bed and trust me, she was enjoying his merchandise.”

His dad sighed, then called the bartender over, “I’ll have what he’s having.”

His dad, Chet Senior, too, didn’t drink hard liquor unless it was something stressful. “Something happen Chet?”

He shook his head and that’s when JR finally got out of his stupor and stared at his dad.

“What’s going on dad?”

Chet wiped a hand down his face with fatigue and then sadness. “Addy’s home.”

Everything in me stilled.

They seemed to not notice me
, because they continued talking like I wasn’t there.

“I thought she wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow. She said she was staying the week. Something to do with her job. What does she do anyway? She ain’t ever told me.”

“Didn’t tell us either. Just said she was gonna get here tomorrow. She knows Maggie’s b-day BBQ is next Saturday, and said she’d be there. Also said she would be bringing someone with her.”

“She get married?”

“Nah. I don’t think so.”

Adelaide. Married? Everything inside me froze at that thought. No fucking way. A beautiful girl like her however, I wouldn’t think she’d still be single
, but I just couldn’t think of another man’s hands on her. My hands fisted and I wanted to punch something fierce.

“I wouldn’t have even known she was here until I saw her walking out of Geoff’s place with a hurt and
an anger I’ve never seen on her before. I was gonna stop and ask if everything was okay, but she hurried to the vehicle she was driving and peeled off like the hounds of hell were coming after her. I was on my way home from picking up the tractor I loaned out and didn’t necessarily want to follow with a big ass tractor behind me. That’s when your mother called, telling me Sylvie’s been blowing up the house phone. Thought I’d find you here.”

“Yup. You found me.”

This was getting heavy. I really didn’t want to deal with this right now. My brain was filling itself with images of Adelaide. The last time I saw her, she looked all shiny and innocent. She probably hadn’t changed. Ten years, of course she’s grown into a woman, and out of that awkward teenage stage perhaps, but she was probably one of those-wait till the third date to kiss, get married before sex and white picket fences in her eyes-type woman. I wanted that ten years ago. Now? Hell, who was I kidding? I’m pretty sure if she gave me a chance, I’d marry her tomorrow. Letter notwithstanding.

While listening to Chet and JR talk about moving his shit back to the farm, the atmosphere seemed to shift. Got huskier. Potent.

That’s when I heard Chet Senior say, “Well, hell. There she is.”

My head upturned quickly towards the front entrance.

Holy. Fuck. Me. Shit. That was not Adelaide. This woman was all sexy with sinfully sweet curves, beautiful brown hair that teased the top swells of her breasts. She was wearing a leather jacket, an animal print type top that stopped an inch from the top of a pair of painted on jeans. Did she have a belly button ring? Jesus. Then red cowboy boots. Oh mother of God. That’s her. She always said she would get a pair of red cowboy boots when she got the chance.

Finally
, I looked up at her face. Fucking beautiful. Glasses framed her eyes. That didn’t change. Perfectly shaped lips that were already making my cock rock hard.

She moved with a swagger and confidence she didn’t have before. She was close enough to us
, but she still had the hurt and angry look Chet was talking about. She didn’t look anywhere except getting to the bar top as fast as possible.

“What’s it gonna be sugar?” The bartender had flown to her as soon as he spotted her. Hell, looking around, every dick, cock and prick got glued into her as they noticed the atmosphere shift too. I hadn’t even seen the back of her yet. She definitely were one of those
women whose genes didn’t slack off. She was the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.

“Bottled water and a double Crown shot.”

Whoa. Never thought I’d hear that from her bow-shaped lips.

The bartender did as she bid and like the pro it seemed she became, she tossed it back without any problems. That was hotter than hell.

Then she said, “And keep ‘em coming.”

Chet and JR were just as speechless as I was.

“She surely has changed,” JR said when he finally lifted his chin from the floor.

Hell, mine was still dangly.

“Well, boys, she has changed. She’s a grown woman, and the way every male in this room is looking, she’s about to be flocked. Chet?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Courtland?”

“Yes, sir.”

He wanted me to keep an eye on her for the time she was here. Hell if I wouldn’t. I would keep two eyes, because after one dick went up to her, luckily she turned him down, I was about to punch anyone else who approached her.

The three of us waited,
thinking maybe she would notice us. Just then, she brought her phone in her line of sight, and her smiled turned sweet and loving. Damn, if that was a lover, I might end up killing someone for sure.

Fuck. I didn’t want this, I told myself. Just by looking at her, I could see she was a walking talking trouble magnet. A hot one, but she was trouble with a capitol ‘T’.

“Hey! Yeah, I’ll be on my way shortly. Just thought I’d stop for a drink first.”

Her voice was low, husky and just made for cool sheets and hot nights. I couldn’t help reaching a hand down and shifting my junk. My jeans were getting tighter by the very sound of her voice.

Then she sighed heavily, as if something was weighing heavily on her and I shifted in the chair to pay close attention.

“Not so hot. God, Uncle Chet would flip his shit if he really knew his brother.”

My eyes shifted to Chet and noticed his body hardening, and his eyes held confusion and shock. I remember whenever Adelaide had problems, sometimes Chet would be an intermediate between her and Geoff. He was protective of her as any father would be. But none of us knew the true extent of what went on in Pastor Hunter’s house. Not even Chet.

“Yeah, and Geoff would have a heart attack if he knew what I did for a living. And you know he would throw an apoplectic fit if he seen my ink and piercings. Huh. For some reason, that appeals to me. If he gets near me I will.
I don’t care if I said it before. Please. Yeah. I’ll be there soon. Love you too. Bye.”

Shit. I didn’t know if she was talking to a male or female. Which irritated me to no end. I loved watching her every move though. The fact she said she had piercings and ink? Damn. I wanted to see every piece. And where? I saw the belly button knot, but if she had others? In more intimate places? I might just come in my jeans with the thought.

The ink shop where I got the script I put on, told me about piercings. I ended up dealing with a quick burst of pain as I got my dick pierced with a Prince Albert. It took a few months to heal thoroughly and I didn’t even notice it most of the time.

Looking at Adelaide right now though, and with my ever increasing erection, I could feel the sensitivity build. Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t realize she was being approached by yet another dipshit. I knew I wouldn’t be able to take much more of this. I was about to get up and interrupt when she took the guys hand
, and let him lead her to the dance floor. She knew better than to dance with some stranger. I don’t know where she was living the past ten years, but a stranger was a stranger. Luckily, the song was fast paced, and over quickly. She came back, and put her leather jacket on the bar counter.